Fish Tacos

As with so many things, I was late to the fish taco party. For a long time they just didn't sound appealing at all, or my inner 13-year-old would giggle. Then one night I was watching one of my favorite Food Network shows, Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and one of the segments was this place in California where the specialty is fish tacos. I saw how they were prepared and thought I can do that.

Oddly enough, the first time I made them at home was when I had no kitchen. We were renovating, the kitchen was gutted down to the studs, and we had temporary digs set up in the living room. Working with my two butane burners, I tried to approximate what I'd seen on TV by sauteing chunks of roughy in butter and lime juice, then serving with a lot of fixings: quartered cherry tomatoes, chopped scallions, and prepared broccoli slaw. Broccoli slaw is an awesome invention and I always have a bag of it on hand, especially in summer.

And wow, were they good.  I couldn't believe I'd lived this long without trying them.

So I made these the other night but as I had no filet fish on hand, I reached instead for a box of Trader Joe's mahi-mahi burgers. These are great on the grill in summer time, they make a nice alternative to hamburgers. I figured they'd work for tacos. I just fried them up 5 minutes on a side then cut them into rough chunks. I made the broccoli slaw again although I had it in the back of my mind that the celery-fennel slaw would be amazing with fish tacos. Baby spinach, and halved cherry tomatoes and sliced cucumbers.

Everyone fix 'em up, roll 'em up, come and get 'em.  I can't wait to eat these outside on my deck.

Olympic Onion Tart

So we had a little party on Saturday night. I love to have people over for dinner but I don't like being so busy with dinner that I don't get any time with the people. So the key is to find lots of wonderful things that make themselves, or can be made ahead of time, and appeal to a wide variety of people and ages. A soup party is ideal.

The kids got chicken soup. For the adults, I made a huge pot of butternut squash soup, and my Olympic Onion Tart. I always make it during an Olympic year, to eat while we watch the opening ceremonies. Funny how these traditions get started. 

Anyway, guys, I LOVE this recipe. I got it out of Gourmet magazine two years ago. They called it a tart. It's really pizza. I make it all the time. It's great for an appetizer, with soup, and it's awesome cold the next day for breakfast. Or lunch.

This is one of those things you make according to the recipe twice, and after that you kind of wing it until it becomes something your own.

Make this. Make it your own.

Onion Tart

• 1 package frozen pizza dough (click here if you want my pizza dough recipe)
• 3 lbs yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced (you can do just white, or just red. Or combo red and white. You could also do a combo of onion and fennel, which is quite nice.)
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (I sometimes use a combination of Dijon and honey mustard. In the pictures below I tried whole-grain which was a mistake. Way too overpowering. Don't.)
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (or any shredded cheese you wish. Literally whatever I have is what I use and it always comes out good)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
• Fresh (or dried) chopped parsley or any herbs of your choice. If you use fennel, chop the fronds fine and use them.

Heat olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions (and fennel if using), 1 tsp salt, and a few grounds of the pepper grinder. Saute for 5 minutes until well-coated, then lower heat. Low heat and long time is the name of the game when it comes to caramelizing onions. You're going to cook these a good 45 minutes to an hour until they are very tender and golden-brown. The good news is you can do this step up to two days ahead of time, and store the onions in the fridge until it's time to make the tart.

Preheat oven to 450 with rack in the middle.

Oil or spray with Pam a baking sheet. Stretch pizza dough out, into a rectangle if you can but I never seem to manage more than a lopsided circle. Doesn't matter, it's supposed to look rustic. Spread mustard evenly over dough, leaving a 1/2" border around edge.

Spread onions evenly over mustard, then sprinkle cheese, then herbs over all. 

Bake tart 10-12 minutes until crust is golden brown.

Slice.

Serve.

Die.

Your guests will love it.

I had a great time. I'm so glad you came.

Chicken Soup

• 4 split chicken breasts, bone in, skin on
• 1 onion, diced
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled, and sliced
• 2-3 outer stalks of celery, and entire inner heart, sliced, leaves and all.
• 6-8 carrots, peeled and sliced
• At least 1, and some of a second box of chicken broth, approx 6 cups total.  Ish.
• 3/4 cup small pasta such as orzo, stellini, acini de pepe or even alphabets
• Fresh chopped parsley
• 3-4 egg yolks (optional)

Preheat oven to 375. Rub chicken breasts with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 1 hour. Let cool. Eat skin if you're that kind of person. Discard skin if you're not that kind of person or give it to me. Take meat off bones and roughly chop or shred. Discard bones. Don't give them to me.

Heat little bit of olive oil in your soup pot. Add all the veggies and saute 5-7 minutes.

Add broth and bring to a boil. Add pasta, lower heat and cover. Simmer until vegetables are tender and pasta is cooked. Add reserved chicken. If desired, slip egg yolks into broth while simmering and poach until cooked through.

Add chopped parsley and serve.

A good trick to cool down soup for kids is to put some frozen peas in the bottom of the bowl and then ladle the soup on top. Clever, huh?

Chicken Salad Véronique (although I prefer Betty)

Betty. And Ginger. And Moneypenny. Those are my girls. Anyway, I just realized I didn't follow up the Tarragon Chicken post with the Barefoot Contessa's chicken salad for next day's lunch, so here it is. Obviously I skipped the first few steps in the recipe because I was using leftovers. Just goes to show you should always have two extra breasts.

...Never mind.

Ina Garten's Chicken Salad Véronique

• 4 split (2 whole) chicken breasts, bone in, skin on
• olive oil
• kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup good mayonnaise (the Countess approves of Hellmann's, thank God)
• 1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon leaves
• 1 cup small-diced celery (2 stalks)
• 1 cup green grapes, cut in half

Preheat oven to 350

Place chicken breasts, skin side up, on a sheet pan and rub them with olive oil. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. Set aside to cool

Remove meat from bones and discard along with skin (or if no one is looking, eat the skin. C'mon, who are we kidding here?). Cut the chicken into 3/4 inch dice. Place chicken in a bowl, add mayonnaise, tarragon, celery and grapes. Toss well and salt and pepper to taste.

Bon luncheon, Betty!

Black Bean Fritters

“And all week long your River City youth’ll be fritterin’ away, I said your young men will be fritterin’. Fritterin’ away their noon time, supper time, chore time too...”

— "Trouble," from The Music Man

If you're going to fritter away supper time, do it with black bean fritters. These can be the appetizer, or the side dish, or even the main course. Or you could simply make them as comfort food, when a needy friend stands stoveside, beer in hand and heart on her sleeve, and eats them as they come out of the pan. This has never happened to me but it's a sweet picture. (Writes that down)

Stoveside Black Bean Fritters

• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 bag frozen corn, defrosted or not.  I use Trader Joe's.
• 1 red bell pepper, diced small
• 1 zucchini, grated, and squeeze out as much juice as possible
• 2-3 scallions, chopped
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley or cilantro (or a mix of both)
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar (optional, but it makes a bit of difference)
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup cornmeal

Mix all of the above in no particular order. You may need to add in another 1/4 cup cornmeal if consistency is too wet (from the zucchini).

Drop tablespoons of batter into olive oil, fry both sides until golden brown, drain on paper towels, sprinkle with salt.

These go good with butternut squash or tomato soup, or tossed on top of a spinach salad.  They are also good on their own with beer and heartache.

We Make Quite a Pear

Poached pears are yet another thing I've had in the back of my mind to try but never got around to trying. Until tonight. By virtue of me slowly working my way through a stack of old Everyday Food issues I found in the basement, and putting post-its on the pages with things to try, and seeing Bosc pears in the store today and taking it as a sign.

And of course, having a willing sous-chef who loves pears, and who owes you big time for eating all your celery-radish slaw before you could get it on camera.

This recipe uses 1 dish (microwave-safe 2-qt dish with a cover), has 4 ingredients and takes 10 minutes. Watch.

Poached Pears with Vanilla Cream Sauce

• 4 firm, ripe Bosc Pears
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into slices
• 1/4 cup vanilla ice cream

Peel the pears. Slice the bottom so the pear will stand on end, and with a melon baller or sharp knife, core the pear from the bottom side.

Scatter the butter in the bottom of the dish. Scatter sugar on top. Stand the pears up on top of the butter and sugar.

Cover. Microwave 10-12 minutes. Carefully uncover as dish will release steam.

Transfer each pear to a small bowl or saucer, leaving juices in dish. Add ice cream to juices and stir until melted.

Evenly spoon sauce onto each pear.

Serve.

Die.

Springing Forward

Always fun to put the clocks ahead on a night when you're partying hard. Makes for an exhausting Sunday but I do love the extra hour of daylight.Between hangovers and lost time, we were all hitting the wall around 5:00 tonight. I knew it wasn't going to be anything more strenuous than toasted cheese and tomato soup.

Now, that gap that the spoon is lying across was supposed to be filled with something. See, I was jonesing for something toothsome like a slaw, and DeCicco's had these really cute bunches of easter egg radishes—white, pink, red, purple. I remembered seeing somewhere a recipe for radish-celery slaw. I had celery. I also had a bulb of fennel.

In the spirit of "don't make a lot of what you haven't made before," I sliced thin 4 radishes, and the very interior heart of two bunches of celery, leaves and all. Then half a bulb of fennel, core removed and sliced thin thin thin, then I chopped up some of the fronds as well for flavor. I tossed it all with the 1/2" of vinaigrette that was left in the bottle. It tasted awesome, and I took a small forkful over to Panda.

"Celery-fennel-radish slaw," I said. "What do you think?"

She wrinkled her eyebrows. "Should be creamier, like cole slaw. Can you put some mayo in it?"

Dammit, she was right. I put in a squeeze of mayo and it was totally, completely perfect.

Now, I set the bowl aside on the kitchen counter and went in search of my camera so I could capture this for the blog. When I got back, here's what I found:

Between the two of them, Lovely and Dovely here polished off THE ENTIRE BOWL!! ON CHIPS!! I could barely get in over their shoulders to take a picture of it, and the one I got is very washed out so you can't see the pretty red, pink and purple edges of the radishes.

I was going to file this under "salads" but I guess I'll file it under "appetizers" instead?

Tarragon Chicken

Artemisia dracunculus.

Dragon's Wort.

Tarragon.

One of France's fines herbes and best friend to chicken. I tried my hand at tarragon chicken tonight and really came up with a winner. This was quick, simple and delicious.

I stripped the leaves off 2 big sprigs of tarragon, chopped them fine and mixed them into some butter (I can't say how much because I'm still suffused with shame from the cream of mayonnaise broccoli soup). I chopped up another sprig and set aside.

I had three bone-in, split chicken breasts, so six pieces. I put three on each baking sheet, then took a teaspoon of the herbed butter and slipped it under the skin.

I sprinkled the chicken with a little garlic powder, sea salt, pepper, and the remaining chopped tarragon.

Baked at 375 for 30 minutes, then rotated the pans in the oven, and baked another 35 minutes.  After taking out, I tented them with foil and let sit while I steamed some green beans, and the roasted sunchokes and brussels sprouts were finishing up.

A kick ass dinner, if I do say so myself.  And leftovers to make Ina Garten's chicken salad Véronique for lunch tomorrow.

Hold that thought.

Jerusalem Artichokes

As I wandered through the produce section of DeCicco's, I saw them suddenly on the shelf, like a vision from Heaven: Jerusalem artichokes. This guy in my office, Pete, is a foodie extraordinaire. A real gourmand. And we're always talking shop about menus, particularly around the holidays. A couple of years ago at Christmas, I was planning to make a beef tenderloin, and I asked Pete what I should serve alongside. He came back with roasted brussels sprouts with Jerusalem artichokes. Brilliant, I thought, for I'd long wanted to try these things.

Foist of all, the Jerusalem Artichoke is neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke.

Discuss.

These are actually the roots, or tubers, of the wild sunflower Helianthus tuberosus. I'd heard them described as a cross between a potato and a water chestnut, and always described as very, very good. After Pete's suggestion, I wanted so much to make them for Christmas dinner, except there was one problem: I couldn't find them. I searched grocery stores and Asian food markets, high and low. Here was one of the most prolific, nearly-invasive plants in the country and I couldn't find one tuber.

And now here they were at DeCicco's, packaged as "Sunchokes" and smiling at me benevolently, seeming to say, "Take me home, darling..."

So I did.

There were nine chokes in the package, and one thing I've learned over the years is never to make a lot of something you're making for the very first time. So I scrubbed up four of the chokes and sliced them 1/4" thick. Then I peeled and sliced three carrots, peeled and smashed three cloves of garlic, and cleaned the outer leaves off a handful of the teensiest, tiniest brussels sprouts I'd ever seen in my life (did I mention I love DeCicco's?)

I tossed all with olive oil, sea salt and pepper, and roasted on a baking sheet for an hour at 375, tossing occasionally so that the sliced sunchokes got good and browned on both sides.

Delicious with the tarragon chicken!! I snuck a slice of sunchoke on each kid's plate and they ate them, no questions asked, thinking they were potatoes.

How to Have Your Pudding if You Don't Eat Your Meat

How?  HOW?! Why with individual corn puddings, of course.

I took a walk through some other recipe notebooks I have, mostly things torn out of Martha Stewart Living, and came across this nifty one for corn puddings. Though the recipe calls for fresh corn, I just use frozen, and this time I added peas to them. I suppose you could even do frozen vegetable medley, too. Why not?

Why Not Corn Puddings?

• 4 ears fresh corn or 1 1/2 cups frozen (or mix of corn and peas) thawed and drained well
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 large eggs, separated
• 1 3/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• Pinch of cayenne

Fill up your teakettle and get it going on a back burner; you need boiling water for this later.

If using fresh corn, cut kernels off cobs and set aside.

Heat oven to 325. Spray 8 6-oz ramekins with Pam and set aside (I actually do own ramekins, which I love, but I only have 5 in the 6-oz size. The batter ended up filling all 5 and then a larger 8-oz one)

Melt the butter in a saucepan, then whisk in the flour

In a mixing bowl, whisk the corn, egg yolks, milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne. Add the melted butter and whisk to combine.

In a small bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form (or use the immersion blender that your FABULOUS SEESTER gave to you for Christmas, oh thank you thank you thank you, I love it so much that I have to name it. Seriously, this thing rocks. Before, to beat two measly egg whites I'd have to drag out the Kitchen Aid. No more!)

Fold egg whites into corn mixture

Pour the mixture into ramekins, distributing corn and batter evenly.  Don't overfill—leave 3/4" at the top to allow puddings to rise.

Place ramekins in a baking dish. Fill the pan with enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

Transfer baking dish to oven, bake until puddings are puffed and golden, 50 to 55 minutes. I took mine out at 50 but they could've used that extra 5 minutes. Using a potholder, transfer ramekins to individual saucers to serve.

Best served piping hot if you want ultimate "puff". As they cool, they will deflate somewhat but still be delicious.